Friday, October 7, 2011

The Incomparable Leon Goossens

I started this blog over a year ago with some oboe recordings (by Mitch Miller), so it seems fitting that I should return to posting uploads of vintage recordings by celebrating that supreme exponent of the instrument, Leon Goossens (1897-1988).  I present no less than eight concertos recorded by him between 1937 and 1950, three of which I have offered before (on RMCR, in 2007 - the concertos by Albinoni, Vivaldi, and Scarlatti-Bryan).  I have decided to offer these uploads in two batches, one containing Baroque oboe concertos, and the other containing 20th-century works, both original and arrangements:

Part One:
Albinoni: Concerto in D, Op. 7, No. 6
Handel: Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat
Marcello: Concerto in C minor (& Fiocco: Arioso)
Vivaldi: Concerto in D minor, Op. 8, No. 9 (& Albinoni: Allegro)
Link (FLAC files, 108.4 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 46.11 MB)

Part Two:
Cimarosa-Benjamin: Concerto (& Bach: Sinfonia from "Easter Oratorio")
Eugene Goossens: Concerto in One Movement, Op. 45
Scarlatti-Bryan: Concerto No. 1 in G (& Pierné: Aubade)
Richard Strauss: Concerto for oboe and small orchestra
Link (FLAC files, 160.97 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 70.48 MB)

The Cimarosa, Marcello and Strauss recordings have had quite a bit of currency over the years, the others perhaps somewhat less so.  The conductors include Eugene Goossens, Leon's eldest brother (in the Handel, the earliest of these recordings), Malcolm Sargent (in the Cimarosa), Alceo Galliera (in the Strauss), and Walter Susskind (in the rest).

Eugene Goossens is also heard as a conductor on the following two recordings of Baroque arrangements, which I originally uploaded in 2007:

Bach-Goossens: Suite in G (after French Suites Nos. 3 and 5)
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eugene Goossens
Recorded June 25, 1931
HMV C 2273, one 78-rpm record
Link (FLAC file, 23.32 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 9.58 MB)

Scarlatti-Tommasini: The Good-Humoured Ladies - Ballet Suite
London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Eugene Goossens
Recorded June 29, 1936
RCA Victor Red Seal set M-512, two 78 rpm-records
Link (FLAC file, 43.89 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 23.03 MB)

Finally, one of the earliest recordings billing Leon Goossens as a soloist - again, this is a "reissue," having been originally uploaded in 2008:

Mozart: Oboe Quartet in F, K. 370
and
Bach: Sinfonia to Cantata No. 156
Leon Goossens, oboe, and the Spencer Dyke String Quartet
Recorded in May, 1925 by English Parlophone
National Gramophonic Society Q, R, S, three 10-inch 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 44.53 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 15.79 MB)

2 comments:

  1. Inmpressive! Very glad to be able to hear this beautiful collection of Leon Goossens recordings.

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  2. I don't know if it's a temporary issue--I hope it is--but when I tried a couple of times just now to download a file instead of the download, an advertising or "Virus Alert" window opens. This is the first time I've seen this from FileFactory, but you may want to look into it.

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